


After the End

by Celandine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-19
Updated: 2011-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-21 13:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celandine/pseuds/Celandine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucius ponders Voldemort's question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Your Cruise Director (cruisedirector)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/gifts).



_How can you live with yourself?_

The question haunted Lucius. Everything he had done for years, all the choices he had made, had been meant to preserve his family, to maintain the position that the Malfoys had held in wizarding Britain for nearly a thousand years. Yet, somehow, it had all gone wrong. He had become a virtual prisoner in his own house in recent months, been forced to give up his wand to the Dark Lord as if he were some useless Squib. His son feared and loathed him, his wife despised him.

Narcissa had had the right idea in the end: walk away from the horror. She hadn't even looked back to see if Lucius would follow. He wished he could tell her that he was proud of her decision, prouder still that she had saved their son, but he could not find the words to speak. A brittle silence hung over them all. Malfoy Manor, though now devoid of Death Eaters, seemed permanently defiled.

He was not surprised to come down for breakfast one morning several weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts to find a note from Narcissa, informing him that she was leaving him. She had moved to a flat in London, and Draco would stay with her until he was able to take his N.E.W.T.s and move on with his life.

Lucius sent a house-elf for the best brandy that was still in the cellars, and drank the entire bottle before noon.

When he woke the next day, rumpled and unshaven and still in the previous day's nightclothes, he knew that there was only one way to answer the question that the Dark Lord had posed so facetiously: he must change.

**Author's Note:**

> For cruisedirector, who wanted anything Lucius Malfoy based on Voldemort's "How do you live with yourself?" This is movie-verse.


End file.
